Benefits of having "trusted / high quality" user recognition

Long thread, quick replies:

1. Per Piotrus: Never underestimate the importance of choosing terminology well. "Senior editor" works just fine for me. We can debate terminology if this goes ahead, but the basic point's good.
2. A panel's fine, but you hit the old problem then: this is a panel that indirectly controls who's designated as a "senior editor". So that becomes a focus of allegations, games, and so on, as Arbcom can be. We know where that path goes, and if avoidable, let's avoid it.
3. This area's easier than Arbcom because editorial behaviors are almost all public record (even alliances emailed in private become obvious on wiki a lot of the time), so bad conduct's visible. The community was founded on open decision making, and for all other senior roles, it works just fine. Admins, arbs, both done by the open community. let's see if we can avoid losing or diminishing that. It's part of the "trust" model to trust the wider community where we can (with suitable precautions).
4. Instead of a panel, or trying to be super-ideal on selection, we can have a "pretty good" selection, if we also have ways to effectively catch the exceptions. Don't let the minority fringe case distort what's fine and simple process for the majority of cases. So we might back a 95% valid (but slightly able to be gamed if determined) nomination system, by also having:

   • A clear and standardized removal process
   • Perhaps some kind of scrutineers panel who can review cases claimed to be grossly affected by bias and canvassing, or where the results don't reflect appropriately on the user.

5. Arbcom's definitely the wrong ones for this.

Agree with FT2's no 3, I think a pannel isn't necessary. The arbcom isn't supposed to be involved in matters of content anyway (at least, the Dutch one isn't, I'm not totally sure about other arbcoms). Let's trust that, after a careful analysis of the portfolio and hearing the opinion of at least, say, three other 'senior editors', the community is able to choose a new 'senior'. Having the community choose them is more in line with the spirit of Wikimedia projects than having an elite pannel.